… or Amazoned or AirBnB’d? Think about it. When was the last time you went into a travel agency to book your flight? Printed out directions for your road trip? Walked into the bank to write a check for cash? We can’t remember either.

Automation isn’t coming; it’s here!

Just look around you. See those core business processes. One way or another, they’ll be automated. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime and it’ll change your organization.

In a previous article, we discussed how the Visual Rule Builder (VRB) update – it looks like it’s coming next weekend and we’re really excited – makes it super-simple to initialize forms with the current date, personal information etc.

Of course, real-world forms and workflows have many kinds of business requirements and another common one is the need to compute a subtotal and a grand total in a table of line items.

The form might look something like this. There’s a Table with four columns : Item description, Quantity, Unit Price and Subtotal. The Subtotal for each line is computed as the product of Quantity and Unit Price. There’s also a Grand Total which sums the individual line items.

Prior to the VRB, you’d have to write a JavaScript rule as shown below

Once again, it’s not wildly complicated but there are a few quirks that could trip up someone who’s not used to coding e.g. a temporary variable is required to compute the Grand Total, there’s a for loop and the repeating fields need to be treated as arrays. The syntax can be a bit confusing, it’s easy enough to make a mistake and hard to debug.

Enter the Visual Rule Builder

With the VRB, it’s simple and anyone can do it. We’ll create two separate rules, one for the subtotals and another one for the Grand Total.

1. Open the VRB and set the condition. This is when we want the rule to fire. In this case, a Subtotal can only be calculated when we know the Quantity and Unit Price so that’s what we setup in the first panel of the VRB wizard.

2. The next step is to define what actions to take when the condition is TRUE. Once again, with the VRB, it’s straightforward. We want to multiple Quantity and Unit Price. So, we simply Set the Subtotal to the desired expression. We don’t have to worry about the fact that these are repeating fields in a table, there’s no for loop or array indexes to consider.

3. Finally, in the last panel of the VRB wizard, we set the Subtotal to empty when the condition is FALSE. This ensures that the Subtotal will be cleared if Quantity or Price are empty.

4. The last step is to calculate the Grand Total. Finish the above rule, create a new one and open the VRB. There is no Condition required so leave it empty. On the next panel we use a function to set the Grand Total to the Sum of all the Subtotals. That’s it. The SUM () function is smart enough to ignore empty rows and treats them as 0’s.

5. The final rules look like this.

6. Test the form. You’ll see that the Subtotals and Grand Total are automatically computed as desired.

That’s it. Quick and easy – anyone can do it. This VRB update is coming really soon and we’re very excited about it because simplifying JavaScript rules has been a high-priority request from our customers. Contact us for more information and to try out the VRB for your own business forms.

In recent articles, we’ve discussed how frevvo and other low-code platforms are making it easier for citizen developers who aren’t coders-by-trade to create effective, high-quality apps. Customers love the flexibility and power of frevvo when it comes to creating dynamic forms but, sometimes, they struggle with writing business rules in JavaScript.

We’re constantly working on improving our product to reduce the need to write code. We’re about to release an upgrade to the Visual Rule Builder (VRB) that’ll let you visually create even more dynamic behavior. Let’s take a look at an example. One of the most common business rules is to initialize a form with the current date and user data (first name, email address etc.) Until now, you had to write a rule like this:

It’s easy to make a mistake and hard to debug. In subsequent articles, we’ll see examples of even more complex rules.

Enter the Visual Rule Builder

Setting up your form for the above dynamic behavior is trivial with the VRB. You simply use visual wizards. Let’s say, you’ve built a form with a few fields shown below. There’s a date field for Today’s Date and a Persona Info section with some user-specific data.

1. After you open the Rule Builder wizard, choose which field you want to Set from the pick list. The pick lists shows all available fields.

2. What do you want to do? You can set a value, set a label, show/hide the control, enable/disable the control etc. In this example, we wish to initialize the controls and we’ll choose accordingly.

3. What do you want to set it to? You can use the slider to choose a literal value (e.g. 3 or the string “Joe”) or a function/expression. We’ll deal with expressions in a later post. In this case, we want to use built-in functions for today’s date and user-information. Start typing in the text box and matching functions will pop up. It’s very similar to Excel or Google Sheets. For each function, available parameters and detailed help is also displayed.

4. When you’re done with all the fields in our form, it’ll look like this. We’re setting the TodayDate field to today’s date using the today() function and the various Personal Information fields to user-specific information using the appropriate userXXX() function.

5. When you click Finish, the VRB wizard pops down and you can see a synopsis of the rule. Click any pencil icon to edit the rule and change the actions being taken.

6. Test the form. You’ll see that all fields are automatically initialized as soon as the form loads to the appropriate values.

That’s it. Quick and easy – anyone can do it. This update to the VRB will be available in December 2017 (just a few days). Making JavaScript rules easier is one of the highest priority items for our customers and we’re excited about this capability. Subsequent posts in this series will explain other examples of rules that are much easier using the VRB.

Every business has its own set of approval processes. The general concept is straightforward: deliver information from Point A to Point B with all the required checks, authorizations and reviews. At the same time, the world is now online, mobile and 24×7. Paper- and email-based processes are ill-adapted to function in this environment. Workflow Automation helps you transition these key processes online so they work on mobile, are available 24×7 and operate efficiently.

The problem is that there are dozens of processes from Finance to HR to Sales & Marketing to Operations, and I.T. organizations simply cannot cope. Using traditional approaches to software development, automating these workflows would take years and cost an astronomical sum of money. These methods cannot keep up with the speed and agility demands of the modern enterprise.

That’s where a platform like frevvo can make a huge difference. The 100% visual, low-code solution delivers extraordinary capabilities:

Visual form & workflow design

Point-and-click integration using wizards

Visual business rules

Built-in Mobility

A fast, beautiful user experience

Top-notch customer support, security

and more …

Download this white paper which discusses workflow automation, how your organization can benefit, and how you can evaluate and deploy a visual, low-code platform like frevvo for your automation needs.

Bushcare Services provides design and field program solutions for forested areas in South East Queensland, Australia. They work with local stakeholders to develop healthy and sustainable natural areas by managing projects including native tree planting, bushland regeneration, erosion control, fire management and manages parks infra-structure.

Bushcare work projects are a collaboration of many remote supervisors, production
managers and office staff. It’s easy to see how it quickly became very difficult to manage all the moving parts of the daily work order using the existing paper forms.

“One of the great things about frevvo is that very often we will have an idea for a change in the workflow and after discussing it with their Client Services team, we are able to quickly implement it. Thanks to frevvo, we have changed the way we are running our business.”
– Phil Hoskings, Director

They now uses a frevvo paperless portal which includes a 3 step workflow – Maintenance Daily Record – developed over multiple sessions with frevvo’s Customer Success team. The frevvo workflow integrates with Google Sheets, dynamically pulls down client and other information and speeds up the process dramatically. As a result, staff have more time to spend on what’s important – developing sustainable and healthy natural areas.

That’s the start of one of the best Halloween movies ever made … or was it a Christmas movie? We changed it a bit.

We’re hoping you have a ‘spooktacular’ Halloween with costumes, treats and games galore. This time around, try our Halloween Quiz (click the image below) and discover how ready you are for workflow automation this Halloween and throughout the next year.

No matter your expertise level, frevvo has a bunch of great resources for all your forms and workflow needs. So, click the button to take the quiz and find your Halloween treat.